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After hearing from Guacanagari that there was much gold to be had on the island, Columbus decided that he would leave the crew of his wrecked vessel to make a settlement on the island and gather the promised gold. To this end he ordered the ship dismantled to provide the building materials for a small fortress.[2]

"I have ordered a tower and fortress to be constructed and, a large cellar, not because I believe there is any necessity on account of [the natives]," he noted in his journal. "I am certain the people I have with me could subjugate all this island … as the population are naked and without arms and very cowardly."[3]

Columbus called the colony La Navidad ("Christmas") because it was founded on Christmas Day. He appointed Diego de Arana, the cousin of his Córdoba mistress, as governor of the settlement.

On Friday, January 4, 1493, Columbus set sail in the Niña in search of the third ship in the fleet, the Pinta. The Pinta was commanded by Martín Alonzo Pinzón, and had been absent for six weeks. On the night of November 21, the caravelPinta had vanished into the darkness off the coast of Cuba, and in his journal Columbus accused Pinzón of deliberately having separated the Pinta from the other ships in order to beat the admiral to the rich sources of gold which Columbus imagined were in the immediate area. Even more disquieting was his fear that Pinzón might break for Spain in the fast-sailing Pinta to be the first to bring news of the discovery to the Catholic Monarchs and to "tell them lies" about the admiral's conduct of the expedition. On Sunday morning, January 6, 1493, the missing Pinta was spotted approaching from the east, and after a heated argument between the two men, the fleet returned to gather people and supplies for a return voyage.

When Columbus came back from Spain during his second voyage, on November 27, 1493 he expected to see a bustling village. When he landed, however, he saw eleven corpses of his men on the beach and discovered that La Navidad had been destroyed. He was told by nearby Taínos that the settlers had mistreated the natives, who retaliated by killing all of them. Other sources say there was insubordination within the colonists, which led to their deaths.[4]

After Columbus sailed away a second time, the site apparently was forgotten until a Haitian farmer led Dr. William Hodges to it in 1977. Hodges, an amateur archaeologist and American medical missionary, received permission from the Haitian government to excavate a tennis-court-size section of the marshland, and he and his helpers found some artifacts of La Navidad.[5]